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Thoughts about economic and business issues by and for the NYU Stern community -- and others with similar interests. The content reflects the views of individual NYU faculty but not necessarily those of NYU. Comments and suggestions welcome. Special thanks to our tech consultant, MBA alum Tim Reilly.

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Bezos buys the Post

Interesting news, for sure, the question is what to make of it. Some highlights from what we’ve read:

One-click.Andy Borowitz has the best line, saying Bezos “clicked by mistake.” Even better, the official Chinese press missed the joke and passed it on as news.

Competition. David Warsh gives us a short history of the newspaper business. In the 1950s, television put a dent in its primary revenue source, advertising. That wiped out lots of papers, but left the survivors with less competition. Several decades of high profits followed. Now they’re facing the same challenge only more, as advertising revenue moves to the internet, namely Google.

Bezos. There’s no question Amazon has been one of the great successes of our time, but can Bezos do the same for newspapers? Jean-Louis Gassee suggests that Amazon’s maniacal focus on customers might be a good thing for a newspaper, too. He also notes that Bezos, unlike Jobs, has yet to be “tempered by failure.”

One Response to “Bezos buys the Post”

This is a classic example of a value investing strategy. It is a wager on superior implementation of content redistribution through digital media channels– and a cheap bet (on branded content) to boot.